Isabelle Gatti De Gamond (1839–1905): from Liberal Discipline to Biopolitics

Elsa Roland Université libre de Bruxelles Isabelle Gatti de Gamond (1839–1905): from liberal discipline to biopolitics For the most part, feminist theory has assumed that there is some existing identity, understood through the category of women, who not only initiates feminist inter- ests and goals within discourse, but constitutes the subject for whom political representation is pursued. But politics and representation are controversial terms. On the one hand, representation serves as the operative term within a political process that seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy to women as political subjects; on the other hand, representation is the normative function of a language which is said ei- ther to reveal or to distort what is assumed to be true about the category of women. (Butler, 2006, p. 46) ABSTRACT: Isabelle Gatti de Gamond is often presented as one of the first Belgian feminists: she fought for a serious and modern education for women – a set of claims that were at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth by no means traditional in Belgium, given the complete absence of public institutions for the education of women. She has been very much involved in building an entire archipelago of liberal institutions for women, from their childhood to adulthood. And her discourses and institutions have been largely taken up by a growing number of liberal thinkers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (but also by Catholics or socialists) to become almost hegemonic at the turn of the twentieth century. But by redefining women as “natural educators”, we will show by analyzing her discourses and studies on her work, how she participated in the production of the belief that there are properties essential to women and which all women share. KEY WORDS: Adult education, Belgium, educational sciences, feminism, woman education. Zoé and Isabelle Gatti de Gamond are both often presented as the first Belgian feminists: they fought for equal social respect and equal payment for 71 Elsa Roland male and female teachers, as well as for a serious and modern education for girls, with a program comparable to the official program for boys – a set of claims that were at the time, by no means traditional, given the complete absence of public secondary schools for girls and the often very low intellectu- al level required in the existing private schools (mostly Catholic). Note that in Belgium, throughout the nineteenth century, the movement for women’s education is part of a political geography marked by a cleavage between the Catholic and the liberal party (hereinafter Catholic and liberal). This very sig- nificant conflict more generally characterizes the organization of society between Catholic and liberal organizations in Belgium, rendering illusory any attempt to maintain the question of women outside political parties. But for both liberals and Catholics, as elsewhere in the world, it is mainly the patri- archal order that is maintained and influences the status of women (Gubin, Piette, Jacques, 1997, p. 66). The discourses of Zoé and Isabelle gatti de Gamond and the institutions they set up have been largely taken up by a growing number of liberal thinkers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (but also by Cath- olics, socialists or trade unionists) to become almost hegemonic at the turn of the twentieth century. Isabelle Gatti de Gamond has been very much involved in building an entire archipelago of liberal institutions for the education of women, from their childhood to adulthood. But by redefining women as “natural educators”, we will show how Isabelle Gatti de Gamond (1830–1905) – the daughter of Zoé Gamond (1806–1854), one of the first Belgian women founders of women’s educational institutions, participated in the production of the category of women and more specifically, the belief that there are properties essential to women and which all women share. Through her publications and various biographies as well as studies of the history of women and education in Belgium, we will present her work aiming to build an entire system of liberal education for women from a theoretical and institutional point of view. We will pay particular attention to the scientification of her discourse from the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century and the various ten- sions and paradoxes that explode at the end of her life between emancipation vs educationalization, science vs moral, gender equality vs women specificities. Note that in this article the adult education term may be broader than in other articles in this review. On the one hand, because until the end of the nineteenth century, in popular circles, the infants was still the one who could not speak. Young people were at the time considered at a very young age as small adults in reduction who participated massively in the production, the re- volts and the life of debauchery. As for bourgeois circles, until the First World 72 Isabelle Gatti de Gamond (1839–1905): from liberal discipline to biopolitics War, the notion of adolescence did not exist. Therefore, the notion of adult does not correspond to our representations of different ages, but more generally to what we would call adolescence. On the other hand, we will see that in each of the different theoretical initiatives or in the practical achievements of Isabelle Gatti de Gamond, through the idea of educating mothers or future mothers to become natural educators, we can always find the problem of adult education in a direct or indirect way. The 19th century conjuncture in Belgium Unlike France, in the early nineteenth century, Belgium did not have a feminist revolutionary tradition. However, the interest in girls’ and women’s education was very precocious for some women (Caroline Weissenbruch, Zoé Parent, Euphrosine Beernaert, Pauline l’Olivier, Eugenie Poulet…) and crystal- lized around Zoe Gatti, Isabelle Gatti de Gamond mothers, and her new theories on women’s education. Defending social progress for women, she is often presented as the first Belgian feminist with her famous book De la condition so- ciale de la femme au XIXe siècle (1834) [On The Social Condition of Women in the 19th century]. Born in a family of notables and intellectuals where the doc- trine of “free examination” was always very important, Zoé Gatti was a pioneer in women’s education and more specifically in women adult education with her adult school for workers, which she founded with Eugénie Poulet in 1835. If during the first half of the 19th century Zoé Gamond’s speeches were marginalized and her experiments where short-lived, from the 1850s onward, education of women became fundamental, in Belgium, in the struggle between Catholics and Liberals. A new strategy was taking shape. In order to allow the rise of liberalism, it was essential to fight the obscurantism of mothers and wives who were under the influence of the clergy. ”The woman, future wife and educator, subject to the Church, appears like a Trojan horse in the heart of the liberal families” (Gubin, Piette, Jacques, 1997, p. 47). To put an end to this danger, it is the older daughter of Zoé Gatti de Gamond, Isabelle Gatti of Gamond, who will realize part of the ambitions of the first generation of “feminists”in Belgium, with the support of the communal administrations of the big cities (as Brussels) and the young liberals. Isabelle Gatti de Gamond Isabelle Gatti de Gamond, born in Paris in 1839, grew up surround- ed by her mother Zoé Gamond, writer and pedagogue; her father, Jean Bap- 73 Elsa Roland tise Gatti, an italian painter; and two younger sisters, Zoe (1840–1859) and Marie (1848–1889). When Zoé Gatti de Gamond died in 1854, Isabelle Gatti de Gamond, was fifteen years old and in a difficult financial situation – after the investment of the family fortune by her parents in failed experiments of a phalansterian community in France. Isabelle Gatti de Gamond began therefore to work and became a nanny in the service of Polish aristocrats. She re- mained in Poland for five years and took advantage of this stay to perfect, by her own means, her training: she learned Latin and Greek and acquired a solid scientific and philosophical education (De Coster, 1961; Gubin, Piette, Jacques, Puissant, 2006). When she returned to Belgium in 1861, she decided to take over her mother’s work. As Eliane Gubin (2006) explains, “it is difficult to know if she stayed in touch with old relations of her mother that would have favored her projects”. Anyway, between 1862 and 1864, she developed her theories and the whole program she was going to put into practice. She published a review “L’éducation et la femme” [Education and the Woman] that attests, through its collaborators, the relations of Isabelle Gatti of Gamond with a certain Pa- risian educational environment with Jean Macé (the founder of the Ligue de l’enseignement in France) as one of the central figures. Isabelle Gatti de Gamond representation of women in “L’éducation et la femme” Despite the fact that the journal was characterized as ‘very progressive’ (see Flour, Jacques, Marissal, 1994, p. 112), as exemplified in the following statement, the contemporary reader can be struck by the traditional character of Gatti’s representation of gender: What do we say about these overzealous champions who, in order to free women, wanted to deprive her of the attributes of her sex, to tear her from her duties as a girl, a wife and a mother to associate her with their political struggles? to the government of the States, to admit it to the tribune, to the bar, to the army, what do I know? These have misunderstood both the nature and destiny of the woman.

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